Fergie must learn some PR

http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2011/news/editor-hits-out-at-pathetic-fergie-over-bid-to-ban-journalist/
Like most observers of football I greatly admire Sir Alex Ferguson’s record as a footballer manager. But he should leave managing the side’s PR to someone else.
Trying to ban a reporter who asks an awkward question (in fact it wasn’t nearly as bad as you would think from his reaction) only throws petrol on an ember and therefore certainly isn’t a good way of managing the reputation of the club.
If he wants to manage his players in that kind of way that’s between him and the club, but relationships with the media have to allow full and frank exchanges in a professional manner. If you don’t like a question, do your best to answer it and move on. And don’t shoot the messenger.

Combined print and web stats provide an interesting picture

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/may/09/digital-media-abcs
Will Sturgeon’s work has, as Roy says, provided an interesting picture of how some of the national titles compare in their print and web channels.
But, as some of the commenters have pointed out, there are some methodological anomalies.
This would count more than once a print reader who’s also a web reader (as many News International titles subscribers are) or Facebook fan.
It also undercounts the print contribution because all titles have more readers than sales — through sharing of papers. So using the titles’ NRS readership would have been a better comparison with web users and Facebook fans and given some idea of total reach. That’s best measured by randomized qualitative and quantitative research.
This also looks at all web users and fans, but if you’re a UK advertiser selling products mainly in the UK you want to know how many of the Web readers are here, not, as with many of the Guardian and Daily Mail’s, abroad. Unless you have some way of monetizing them too, you need that breakdown.
The Facebook stats are of particular interest as they show a relationship commitment beyond casual sales, may hint at values and, combined with Facebook profile data, allow each title’s fans to be counted on the basis of demographic tools such as MOSAIC profiles, enabling better targeting of messages.
If they aren’t doing already, expect the media packs of the titles to include all this kid of thing in the future.

‘Staged’ pictures have to be transparent

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/may/06/barack-obama-news-photography
To make a big fuss about President Obama restaging a bit of an historic speech for the benefit of photographers who weren’t in the room for the original speech seems more than a little pernickety to me.
Have the same people denounced the famous picture of the Stars and Stripes being raised at Iwo Jima because it too was restaged after a film cameraman caught the actual moment? Probably not.
Rightly, many have complained about the famous Robert Capa picture of a Spanish soldier being shot because it was not only staged but false — it wasn’t what it claimed to show.
And there’s the difference. What does the caption claim that the picture shows? “President Obama announcing that Bin Laden has been caught and killed” or “President Obama speaking”. The caption has to make it clear or not make the crucial claim.
Faking historic moments is out, but restaging with a caption that doesn’t make false claims isn’t.
What would these critics have said if he hadn’t agreed to come out again for the photographers?